Monday, August 01, 2011

Ask Me Anything #12




It's the first Monday of the month and time for the 12th edition of "Ask Me Anything." So, if you've ever had something you've wanted to ask me, wondered about an aspect of a particular project of mine, been curious about something I said, or did, now's your opportunity to obtain the answer you've been looking for.  

Head down to the comment section and post your question. I'll either post my answer in the comment section as well, or answer it in a special post all its own sometime later in the month.

Please take the time to view the previous questions so that we don't wind up with a lot of repetition. I've been asked a lot of good, thought provoking questions in the past as well as some really banal ones. all of which I tried to answer. You can see the previous questions by visiting Ask Me Anything  #1#2 ,  #3#4#5#6 , #7 , #8#9,  #10 and #11 .  Answers not found following the questions can be found in the archives section for each associated month.

Now ask away.


11 comments:

Michael Jones said...

Would the goateed John Rozum in the Mirror Universe have any redeeming qualities or would he just be pure evil?

WickedUrge said...

I see you live "in the deep woods of Michigan". Does being in nature change the way you write?

Robert Pope said...

The Pee-Wee Herman show was inspired by, and itself, inspired many others. Where do you stand on A) Captain Kangeroo, B) Fred Rogers Neighborhood, and Kookla Fran and Ollie? All 3 are special to me for very different reasons, and you can see certain aspects in Pee-Wee's CBS shoe.

John Rozum said...

I will tackle these one at a time, not in order, and not all at once.

WickedUrge -- While the comic book credits are accurate, none of the other bio information, including the picture which was chosen because it looked the most unlike me, is at all truthful.

Being in nature forces me to write using a keyboard hand carved from deer bones with a hard drive cobbled together out of an active yellow-jacket nest where I manipulate their little insect dances and pheromones in order to compose data which appears on my screen made of deer hide stretched over an oak frame. Everything is powered by vines plugged into white pines.

I learned how to do this in Boy Scouts.

Sean Cloran said...

What did you learn from your first published work?

Do you remember the first comic book you ever read?

DEBILORITHMICOS said...

Please tell me Xombi wasn't cancelled beacause of the f... reboot

Anonymous said...

What inspired the Strongholds in Xombi?

John Rozum said...

Now to answer a second question (not in any order). This time I'll tackle my long time collaborator, Robert Pope's question regarding the three classic kids shows.

Robert, I watched all three of those. KFO must have been in reruns unless they did some episodes at the end of the 60s/beginning of the 70s. My memories of it are pretty dim, though I was really taken by Ollie. I know big surprise.

In contrast, the world of make believe on Mr. Rogers scared me as a kid, mostly because of Lady Elaine Fairchilde and Bob Dog even though I liked Bob Dog's real life analogue Bob Trow. I had a bit of a crush on Lady Aberlin. I think because aspects of it scared me that as a whole I was fascinated by it with it's miniature props and puppets, and Daniel Striped Tiger who didn't really talk yet everyone understood him. I was also really drawn to the land of make believe miniatures Mr. Rogers would use in the real world to enact a story before the real characters performed it. I also liked that Mr. Roger had a sentient trolley which travelled between two worlds, including a living room, and had a traffic light in his house and often speculated whether or not he'd obey it if he really had to go to the bathroom. Something about feeding the fish each episode also captivated me. There was something very soothing and comfortable about Mr. Rogers. I was very pleased as a surly high school kid who spent a summer pumping gas to have Fred Rogers pull up the pump on his way to Martha's Vineyard for vacation. He flicked his cigarette at me and told me to "fill the fuckin' tank." Actually he was just like he was on tv but didn't drive a matchbox car. I regret not asking for his autograph even though he signed his credit card slip.

John Rozum said...

Continuing...

Of the three, Captain Kangaroo was my favorite and somewhere I still have a google eyes drinking cup in his image. He also had a calm, soothing demeanor, like Mr. Rogers, but there was something much more demented and madcap about his show, from the near sighted rabbit to the moose and the always welcome and always funny avalanche of ping pong balls. I also really liked his supporting human cast of Mr. Baxter and Mr. Greenjeans. One of my strongest memories from the show is a segment where Mr. Baxter was stuck in the middle of a lake in a rowboat with no oars and ingeniously used an egg beater as a hand cranked motor to get back to shore. Captain Kangaroo also had some nifty cartoons and stories.

John Rozum said...

Michael's turn:

You ask all the hard questions. Or is the word I'm looking for "inane?"

Well, the Van Dyked John Rozum who once existed in this universe was not a dick. I can only hope that in the mirror universe my goateed doppelganger would be sinister. Redeeming qualitees? Since I have no musical ability in this universe, maybe he'd have that and could use it to woo bare midriff mirror universe Uhura.

John Rozum said...

Now the rest:

Sean:

My first professionally published work was for Boy's Life magazine when I was probably a Freshman or Sophomore in High School. I learned I liked getting money for writing. It seemed too easy. I wrote for them a few times no less.

In comics, what I learned from my first published work is that if your editor is the son of the guy who created "Marmaduke" you can't expect him to get humor.

As for the other part of your question, I will hit that in a separate post. I should get to it sometime next week.

D - An insider at DC informed me that this is in fact the reason why. A decision made before there were any sale figures or critical response.

F - What led to their creation is now a mystery even to me. They were created for the original Milestone series. Check back here in September. Unless I'm otherwise too busy I'm planning to go issue by issue with the current series and address various questions about Xombi, or ill informed comments as well as go into a little bit about the hows and whys of my creative process for the current run. I will address the strongholds there.